World Architecture : A Cross-Cultural History

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Spiro Kostof pioneered a sweeping, unified narrative of architecture, based on its role in everyday life and society. Even nonusers looked up to his reputation -- including his narrative voice, his themes of setting and ritual, and his view of architecture as including human habitation along with great buildings. New lead author Richard Ingersoll makes Kostof's highly-respected prose much more accessible, the coverage more global and flexible, social and cultural themes more obvious in section openers and boxes, and the diagrams bolder and clearer. (Kostof's text, last revised in 1995, will remain in print.) Ingersoll had made the text not just much easier to read, but uniquely global, contemporary, thematic, and flexible: · Architecture is presented as a phenomenon that occurs simultaneously in many different cultural and geographical contexts, thus having many histories rather than a single narrative. · Buildings are considered as expressions of the diversity of cultures, situated within each culture's unique historical development · Chapters are strictly organized by chronology, using progressively shorter blocks of time, from thousand-year periods in antiquity to twenty-year intervals in the modern age. · Three sections in each chapter address distinct locations, cultures, or themes during a given time period, showing simultaneous developments in architecture in different contexts. For instance, chapter 5 (from 200 BCE to 300 CE) has sections on Imperial Rome, Han China, and early Mesoamerican civilization. · Flexible: Typical texts organize chapters around Western period styles - or present one building after another. Our 20 chapters with 60 self-contained sections for regions and period styles give instructors flexibility, without losing a strong narrative. Instructors may thus adopt the text to their course, incorporating whatever level of non-Western coverage that they desire. · New pedagogical tools include timelines and maps at the beginning of each chapter, and overviews of each chapter and section · Hundreds of graphics, drawings, and maps, and over a thousand color photographs · An open-access website with chapter summaries, review questions, downloadable image files by chapter, three-dimensional explorations of key buildings, and Google Earth maps

PrefaceChapter 1. Prehistory 1.1 Architecture as a Second Nature: Sacred Caves and Primitive Huts1.2 Vernacular Architecture: A Language of Mud, Logs, Hides, and Stones1.3 Megaliths and Stone Circles: Building as MemoryChapter 2. 3000-1500 BCE 2.1 Cities of Mesopotamia: Mud, Gods, and Urbanism2.2 Old Kingdom Egypt: Architecture for the Afterlife2.3 The Indus Valley: Cities without MonumentsChapter 3. 1500-700 BCE 3.1 The Aegean in the Bronze Age: Labyrinths and Cyclopean Walls3.2 New Kingdom Egypt: Axial Temples and Colossal Statues3.3 Biblical Jerusalem: Architecture and MemoryChapter 4. 700-200 BCE 4.1 Southwest Asia and Achaemenid Persia: A Cycle of Empires4.2 The Greek City-State: Classical Architecture at the Acropolis and the Agora4.3 Mauryan India: Emblems of Peace in StoneChapter 5. 200 BCE-300 CE 5.1 Ancient Rome: Governing through Architecture5.2 Ancient China: The Pivot of the Cosmos in Mud and Wood5.3 Ancient Mexico: Pyramids and SacrificeChapter 6. 300-600 6.1 Early Christian Italy: The Inward Orientation of the Church6.2 Byzantium: The Dome as an Act of Faith6.3 Gupta India: Rock-Cut Architecture and the Art of SubtractionChapter 7. 600-800 7.1 The Spread of Islam: Hypostyle Mosques and Soaring Minarets7.2 Tang China and East Asia: Gridded Capitals and Lofty Pagodas7.3 The Maya of Central America: Reproducing the Mountain of CreationChapter 8. 800-1200 8.1 Southeast Asia and Southern India: Lived-in Models of Cosmic Order8.2 Islamic Spain and Morocco: Interlacing Forms in al-Andalus and the Maghreb8.3 Western Europe after the Roman Empire: Monks, Knights, and PilgrimsChapter 9. 1200-1350 9.1 The Mercantile Mediterranean: New Facades for Old Cities9.2 Gothic Europe: The Fabric of the Great Cathedrals9.3 Sub-Saharan Africa: Living ArchitectureChapter 10. 1350-1500 10.1 Humanist Italy: Public Spaces and Private Palaces of the Renaissance10.2 Eastern Europe: From the Spirit of Wood to the Conventions of Masonry10.3 Pre-Contact America: Empires of the SunChapter 11. 1500-1600 11.1 China after 1000: The Mandate of Heaven Made to Last11.2 The Ottoman Empire: A Culture of Local Symmetries11.3 Papal Rome: The Fountainhead of Renaissance ClassicismChapter 12. 1600-1700 12.1 Islamic Realms in Central Asia: The Dome of Power, the Garden of Paradise12.2 Catholic Europe: The Settings of Absolutism12.3 Edo Japan: Isolation from the World, Integration with NatureChapter 13. 1700-1750 13.1 Protestant Europe: An Architecture of Essentials13.2 The Diffusion of the Baroque: Life as Theater13.3 The American Colonies: Domination and Liberty on the GridChapter 14. 1750-1800 14.1 The Picturesque: Landscapes of the Informal, the Exotic, and the Sublime14.2 Enlightenment Europe: Theory, Revolution, and Architecture14.3 Industry and Punishment: Factories and Warehouses, Prisons and WorkhousesChapter 15. 1800-1850 15.1 After the Revolution: The Ideological Uses of Neoclassicism15.2 The Gothic Revival: Antimodern and Proto-Nationalist15.3 The New Iron Age: The Spread of Metal and Glass TechnologiesChapter 16. 1850-1890 16.1 The Rise of the Metropolis: Urbanism and the New Scale of Architecture16.2 Lifestyles and House Form: Apartments, Row Houses, Bungalows, and Utopias16.3 The Beaux-Arts: Eclecticism and ProfessionalismChapter 17. 1890-1920 17.1 Arts and Crafts: Design and the Dignity of Labor17.2 The Twilight of Western Imperialism: Monuments to the White Man's Burden17.3 Art Nouveau and the Search for Modern Form: Architecture without PrecedentsChapter 18. 1920-1940 18.1 American Skyscrapers and Automobiles: Mass Production Meets Individualism18.2 European Modernisms: A Dialogue between Form and Function18.3 Totalitarian Settings in Modern Europe: Architecture as PropagandaChapter 19. 1940-1970 19.1 The International Style and the Advent of the Welfare State19.2 The Birth of the Third World: Experiments in Postcolonial Urbanism19.3 The Expressionist Resurgence: Hybrids amid Mass CultureChapter 20. After 1970 20.1 Postmodern Movements: Populism, Radicalism, and Irony20.2 Multinational versus Multicultural Practice20.3 Toward an Ecological Worldview: Architecture in the Age of Global WarmingGlossaryCreditsIndex